


Show Me Your Scars

by DarkQueenSigyn



Category: IT (2017), The Conjuring (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 04:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20057836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkQueenSigyn/pseuds/DarkQueenSigyn
Summary: The forgotten brother and the unrelenting heiress. They were always inevitable.





	Show Me Your Scars

She found him in the old amphitheatre. 

Hunched over where he was sitting, his hood obscuring his eyes from view; his hands working away at the old music box he was constantly tinkering with. A cigarette hung from between his lips.

Though she wouldn’t admit it to herself, she had been looking for him. Rather, wandering the campus aimlessly, a part of her hoping that she would stumble upon him without his gaggle of less amiable friends.

But, to her own surprise, she did.

As she approached him, he wasn’t immediately aware that she was there. But then again, subtlety had never been exactly her forte.

“You’re not supposed to smoke here, you know.”

His hands stilled. Slowly, his head turned, and she caught the slightest glimpse of his coal-black eyes from underneath his hood.

His gaze was fixed on her as she gradually ascended the steps towards him, her steps feather-light as her ballet flats carried her. She moved like a dancer, a pale pixie all in white; her bright red hair tied into two tight braids. Her lipstick was nearly the same color as her hair.

“I know that,” he responded simply, his attention successfully diverted for a moment from his music box. He cracked a smirk, as he lifted a hand to remove his cigarette from his mouth, and blow out a long stream of smoke. “But I don’t particularly give a fuck.”

Penny laughed, the sound light and whimsical and almost child-like. She was close enough to him now, and she spun on her heel to settle gracefully onto the cement beside him.

“I like that about you,” she told him, her smile becoming a bit more coy. 

Keval only huffed out a quiet sigh, lowering his gaze back to the music box. His other hand occupied itself with his cigarette; turning it over and over with practiced ease, without ever allowing the threat of burning himself.

“What are you doing here, Penny?”

She shrugged. “Same thing you’re doing,” she answered after a moment. “Contemplating, I guess.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” he wondered aloud. The incredulous look was partially hidden by his hood, but made evident by the tone of his voice.

Penny grinned once again. “One might assume,” she pointed out. “Seems like it’s just you and that little box in the whole wide world.”

He scoffed, pointedly tucking the music box into the pocket of his jacket. 

“Yeah...I know it’s weird,” Keval conceded.

“I didn’t say that,” Penny responded, without hesitation.

He looked at her in surprise. She didn’t shrink beneath his gaze, instead lifting her head with a smirk. 

“What is it?” she asked him. “Really?”

Keval was silent for a moment, holding her eyes. She was unshakeable, an utter force of nature. But there was only benevolence -- and genuine curiosity -- in her inquiry.

With a sigh, he relented.

“My sister gave it to me,” he told her. “Before she joined the convent. Said she hid something special in it, and that I could only find it if I fix it.”

He gave a quiet, monosyllabic laugh, though there was little humor in it.

“What a sick joke, right?”

He took another long drag off his cigarette, and exhaled the smoke out into the air. 

Penny was silent, unfazed. Just watching him. Watching every movement of his mouth, his throat, the subtle rise and fall of his chest with each breath and the flickering of his mostly-obscured eyes.

“I’ve had that stupid thing for four years,” Keval admitted. “And I still can’t figure it out. It’s still all...crooked.”

The word hung in the air for a moment once it left his lips, and he cracked a bitter smile.

“Like me.”

He met Penny’s gaze again, noticing for the first time that her eyes were heterochromatic -- one eye sky blue, the other a strange shade of hazel, or amber.

She smiled back at him.

“What do you think is inside?” she asked softly.

Keval thought about that for a moment, and then shrugged.

“Maybe the reason why she left,” he answered, and for a moment they were both astonished by the overwhelming honesty of that statement.

Penny swallowed. It had been a long time since she had last thought about Mattie...but now wasn’t the moment for that.

“You’ll see her again,” she said. “I know you will.”

There was another heavy moment, shared between the two of them. Then, slowly, deliberately, Keval lifted a hand and pulled back his hood.

His features were sharp and angular. His eyes were, as she had suspected, so dark they appeared purely black. His hair was pale blonde, and cropped very short. 

For a moment, Penny was actually taken aback. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Why are you really here, Penny?” Keval whispered.

Her expression settled, and she knew there was no use in trying to lie or be coy with him now.

“Because you’re different,” she said. “Different from most guys around here. From those guys that you like to hang out with. They’re always trying so hard, listening without hearing, looking without really seeing anyone or anything. But you...you don’t care about any of that. Your interests lie elsewhere. For you, it’s all so...effortless.”

Without being fully aware of it, Penny turned more fully towards him as she spoke, inching closer and closer, until her hand had settled, as light as silk, on his knee. 

“You...intrigue me,” she said simply.

For a moment, he didn’t react -- at least, externally. But he watched her, with the same intensity and voracity as she had been watching him throughout the entire conversation. Even then, in that very moment, she was looking at him as if she wanted to eat him alive.

He, however...he had something else in mind.

“Am I really all that different?” he asked, his voice low. “What about you?”

“Me?” Penny breathed, lifting one eyebrow.

“You turn everything you do into an art form, Penny,” Keval told her. “Everyone always underestimates you, and they usually end up regretting it.”

By now, they were close enough that their breaths intermingled in the air between them. Her hand crept little by little further up his leg, and his fingers began to toy with the end of one of her braids. 

“You’re…”

“Batshit crazy?” Penny offered with a smirk.

Keval grinned back at her, and his smile seemed to stretch across his entire face.

“You’re a fucking powerhouse.”

She all but pounced on him, and he caught her with both hands and held onto her, tight.


End file.
